1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to an apparatus and method for automatically controlling power of a video appliance, and more particularly, to an apparatus and method for automatically controlling power of a video appliance, which can ensure upright posture in viewers by detecting a viewer's posture and automatically controlling power of the video appliance according to the detected posture.
This work was supported by the IT R&D program of MIC/IITA [2007-S-020-01, Development of Privacy Enhanced Biometric System]
2. Description of the Related Art
An increasing number of viewers are watching video contents in home through devices such as TVs, videotape recorders (VTR), digital versatile disc (DVD) players and home theaters, and demands for such video contents are rapidly increasing. Also, various kinds of video contents for infants and children are rapidly increasing and distributed, and thus it is required to provide viewing guidance to infants and children.
Particularly, it is important to ensure upright posture in infants or children who are watching video contents for a relatively long time, as well as to choose good video contents.
However, since continuous parental guidance and observation are required to ensure the upright posture, there is a need for a method or apparatus for effectively ensuring the upright posture without direct parental guidance. However, there has been no special related-art apparatus or method developed to ensure the upright posture in viewers such as infants or children, and parental guidance is still playing a main role in ensuring the upright posture.
The only method or apparatus developed for viewing limitations of viewers of video appliances such as TVs is a proximity-viewing limiting apparatus for a TV set, which includes an infrared transceiver and an ultrasonic sensor. However, this apparatus fails to recognize a viewer's posture.